


Worlds Apart

by lover_of_blue_roses



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Gen, One Shot, older!Jack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-09
Updated: 2016-09-09
Packaged: 2018-08-14 02:18:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7995058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lover_of_blue_roses/pseuds/lover_of_blue_roses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If Hotch hadn't gotten Foyett and resolved everything and instead Jack grew up without his father and they met in other, yet still job related cirmunstances. Short One-shot</p>
            </blockquote>





	Worlds Apart

**Author's Note:**

> Terrible at summarizes and this is my first fanfiction so please all critic either of content or grammar is appreciated (not a native English speaker)

The BAU team had been searching without hope for the missing campers. Several campsites around the same area had been targeted. Most of the campers taken alive for whatever reason, and those that refused to cooperate were gunned down. They knew that in order to do so much the Unsubs were a group, possibly a pack, unlikely a cult. The trouble was without bodies it was terribly hard to create a profile. Without knowing the reason or the purpose the victims took they could only speculate in circles. 

One day, a month after the original kidnappings a girl came out of the woods. She avoided the police officers, dodging their questions and grabbing hands. She was bloody and battered, clothes damaged and generally filthy. Despite being mute and uncooperative, she accepted food and water and took a squad car back to the headquarter for the missing people; some hundred in total. At the police station she still didn't say anything to the officers, heading straight for where the BAU team was set up. They were working in a glass conference room. Her hand left dirty, blood smudges on the glass as she stepped inside. 

The team stopped their conversation to look at her. She then carefully looked from one face to another until she lingered only on Gideon, Rossi and Hotchner. "Which one of you is Aaron?" Her voice was calm and melodic but her body was tense and weary. 

There was a moment of pause before Hotchner stepped forward, "I am." 

She stepped forward and held his face gently with her dirty hands, leaving trails on his face. "Correct zogmatic," she said pushing her thumb along his cheekbone. "We need help. I was told you are a helper. Food and water, medical attention; would be a nice start. But if you can stop the shedu. So we can be safe again. Be free again. Happy even."

"Shedu?" Aaron asked letting the victim touch him.

"Ancient Jewish belief in a demon from hell that brought diseases and affected the mind, from everything to epilepsy to nightmares," Reid explained in his casual way. 

"Ed would like you," the victim said dreamily, "Stop the shedu, stop Azazel, so that we might never know such fear again."

Rather than argue vocabulary again Hotch asked more pressing questions, "I will but I need your help. Where are they? What are they doing? What do they look like?" He knew overwhelming with questions was generally not the best strategy but he was just hoping to get her to start talking. They had been at it for three weeks, without any leads but dead bodies and a great terrible media pressure. It was so bad they had dragged Gideon from retirement for it. 

"I can not say what they look like but if you can get medical attention to Cherry, Abby will tell you?"

"Are you Abby?"

"No, I am Runner 5#. Give me a map and I will show you were Cherry rests. If you can get her help..."

Reid had a geographical profile on the whiteboard that he gave to her, it was covered in drawn points of the abduction were. She hummed as she followed carefully her route back. First as the office her had driven her, then across the forest in a non linger manner until she started to follow a river. At a tiny lake, Runner 5 stopped her finger. "There. That is where they are.Tell Abby...'That you would not eat at the dinner table of Cherry's father, no matter the recognition it would give you among the wolves.' Then Abby will not hurt you, then Abby will let you heal Cherry. To soothe her pain would in debt her to you greatly. Bring food and water too, it will help."

The team was concerned about sending one of their team into a possibly dangerous situation, with a code of safe passage that had not been agreed upon their was the chance this 'Abby' would attack them. Never the less Hotch, Morgan and Reid went to the location via quads to the location. It was a beautiful, calm lake with a gentle shore and thick reeds around it. Hotch felt a little foolish calling out into the nothing. When he felt that he might have gotten whoever's attention he then repeated the phrase told to him, "I would not eat at the dinner table of Cherry's father, no matter the recognition it would give me among the wolves."

From behind Reid jumped another young, teenage girl, although this one was white. She had a smile and was laughing, "I don't know who told you to say that but that's genius. 100%"

"It was a girl that called herself Runner Five," Derek answered calmly and slowly, they all had their guns out pointed to the ground. "We have food and water for you but also medical attention for Cherry. We were told you can tell us what the attackers look like." 

Abby walks forward and looks him up and down at the word food. Morgan tosses her bottled water and some jerky. "There was at least three dozens of them, it will take time. I'll start with the living ones but not hear. In a hospital, Cherry needs help. Can one of you help me get her onto a quad."

Abby shoves herself with food and water like someone starving, leading the two of the men to a cave that houses Abby. "Runner 5's name is Maybelle. But she's been working very hard to find civilisation that she's been burning our resources, she must be quite delirious from the thirst to call herself only by that silly title. It's from a zombie thing. Fitting I suppose, she's a runner, saver of humanity in its time of need."

Cherry is lying on a bed of reeds. Her face is pale and she is in a cold sweat. Most alarming is the giant metal rod sticking out of her chest. It must have punctured her lung. Cherry's eyes are open but she can't see. The first time Abby does is give her food and water, whispers her words of encouragement in a foreign tongue. "I don't know that she'll have the strength to walk to the quads. She got hurt so badly on the first day but she kept going because we thought help was coming soon. Do you have a stretcher?"

Reid isn't there with statistics but the men both know that it must take an iron will to survive a month like that, let alone move. They do in fact have a stretcher and they carry her with create care to the quads and then to hospital. 

There Abby, clearly exhausted, famished and dehydrated; begins to draw. Face after face of people. Her attackers, she doesn't know all of them only those that chased her and her friends on mountain bikes. It was submit or be hunted. She tells them how most of them ran on the first day, few staying behind or dying. But in the next week when they came dressed as cops and park ranger with scent dogs and some as pretend civil volunteers. That is when most of them fell into the trap and were kidnapped or killed. Only their group didn't, they instead were chased deeper and deeper into the woods until they were lost and completely cut of from the town or supplies.

Maybelle, who is know lucid and no longer speaking of Babylonian demons, describes all the attackers that Abby doesn't know. Those that didn't hunt but are at the mazes. The obstetrical courses where they make the people run like mice and failure means death. Maybelle in her look for people has come across three of the possible five 'mazes.' She describes all the attackers she saw and what they were armed with. She fears to identify them on a map, because only some are storm, the others might kill their mice and run away. Maybelle wants them all to pay, if a single one of them escapes it is too much.

Instead she tells the officers that she will return to the woods, find the missing 'mazes' and her friends and get out. All she takes is her swiss-army knife, an unfold-able knife, rope, a walkie-talkie, good clothes and as much food and water as she can carry. No map or cellphone. There is nothing the police can say to stop her, they can only hold that she will lead them to the other hostages. Its a three day trek at walking speeds but its only about six hours in quad. Once there she parks the quad, marks something on the tree and hides the key high up in the tree's branches. 

Three days later she comes out with two teenage boys and the location to all six 'mazes.' Using quads and choppers, the FBI is able to raid all those places, all at once and save 64 souls. 12 are dead at the 'mazes,' 25 dead from the first day raids and an unknown count from the second days chase. The relieved families and the grateful media make the BAU team feel well accomplished. 

The next morning they go to interview the teenagers, boys in one room, girls in the other. Before they can start with them, the girls all crowd into the boys room and the BAU team watches with curiosity from the door. "I have some news. News of most importance and most urgency." The boys tense and all look at Abby that is holding her iPad like it's the Holy Grail. "My father, who you know is excellent as seeing past masks, met a rather alarming fellow. At a meeting for people who's family was part of the abduction, which were very much a thing, he met a this alarming man. Dad, because he's a unbalanced paranoid at the best of times, changed group he met with every time he went, there were apparently enough of them that this was possible; and he saw that this man was also a group hopper. The first time Dad see's him, he just gets a shiver down his spine. But the second time, this man speaks, and my Dad understand what's so disturbing about this man. He's not coming to meeting for guidance or help or anything. No, this man is here because he enjoys watching people suffer!"

"Like some kind of mastermind, that doesn't fit the-"

Abby whacks Ed over the head with her iPad, "I wasn't done." She waits and he says nothing so she continues, "He didn't cause this mess, he just like to be around miserable, suffering people. So my dad snaps a picture of him and sends it Masako, an old friend from when he was friends with cops. And she runs it through a facial identifier. He dyed his hair and grew a beard but the match was 87% so the cops came and arrested him. He was found with several weapons on him. The fingerprint him and he's the missing fugitive with a $100,000 bounty that my Dad can use to be me those wheels I really wanted at least. Knowing he's a high flight risk, they put him in jail in Wisconsin Secure Program Facility -"

"Which is a prison not a jail," Ed butts in, ducking as Abby tries to whack him again.

"Which is a super-maximum security prison where... Wyatt Williams is. So Dad calls in at 9:06, police at 9:47, arrival at the Supermax at 11:21, dead at 6:56. Stabbed 34 times, broken jaw and castrated. One stab for every victim, the broken jaw for pretending to be a victim and the castration for his living victim." She stopped her reading of this apparently joyous news to look at Jay.

Jay was quiet boy, that had been deeply traumatized by recent events. When Derek went to interview him, Jay broke down crying when he was talking about a man that died in front of him whilst all Jay could do to survive was run. When Prentiss went to interview him, he broken down crying about the people he killed in self-defense. When Rossi went to interview him, he started crying before anything was said. The boy was having night terrors, vomiting, panic attacks, sobbing fits, constantly hyperventilating. But now he was smiling. It was the first time the team had ever seen a smile from him. It was huge and showing to many teeth but it also seemed very genuine. "No way."

"Way. Now how about you call your mom, tell her the good news. Oh, and if you haven't yet tell her your alive," Abby said handing him her iPad.

Jay's smile dimmed, "I was hoping I could just not tell her. That she might never know."

"This could be possible," Ed said rubbing his chin in deep thought.

"Actually she's on a flight here now, so how about you tell her in person," Abby told him, snatching her iPad and marching the rest of the group to the door, including Ed that was wheeling his IV stand with him. 

Jay seemed as confused as the rest of the team to watch them leave, "Is there something else?"

"Is there?" Abby asks coquettishly. She turns to face Hotchner, "Do you know what your zogmatic bone is?" He slowly shakes his head, very confused. "It's a bone that as a sketch artist I am aware of, it can be called a cheekbone and gives shape to faces. It's quite hereditary and your's distinct to someone in the business of faces like me." Abby turns around leaving Hotch more confused and talks at Jay. "Like Jay's, its distinct and kind of gives him a scary face but mostly just a serious look." She then stands to be able to look and talk to both of them, bumping shoulders with Hotch. "Aaron is it?"

He nods and Jay's face does a complicated, so happy-i'm-sad expression, with a dash of hopeful eagerness. "Aaron Hotchner, meet Jay. Jay meet your dad. They've already called and logged his death, but it still needs to go through the proper channels, but as soon as George Foyet's death is officially official I have it printed and framed for you. Feel free to hug and cry, don't let masculine get in the way of feelings," Jay shoots her a look and she smiles closing the doors and closing everyone out of the room. 

"Dude," states Ed.

"Dude," replies Abby.

"I can't believe you too are actually the smartest of us," Maybelle sighs. 

"Yeah but, dude," Cherry adds. 

"Didn't see that coming. Are you sure?" Ed asks the unimpressed Abby.

"Foyet was identified not just by his face but his finger prints, not only that, he had rather distinct scars."

"That's not what I meant. What is it's the wrong Hotchner?" 

Abby has gone from unimpressed to unamused. "Firstly faces are my things, I always can tell when people are related. The only time I couldn't see a father, child resemblance was because the mother had been with the milkman."

"I still can't believe you made us run their DNA to prove your were right," Maybelle interjects.

"Further more," Abby overrides the comment, "I don't imagine there are that many Hotchners in the BAU of the FBI."

"Oh my god," says Prentiss, the team having watched the children argue in silence. 

"Pretty sure this is why I left," muttered Gideon.

**Author's Note:**

> For anything wrong in my spelling or writing, please met me know. 
> 
> Want me to write more about my OCs? Want to me to write more about this? Just let me know and I might do it! 
> 
> Runner 5 is from Zombie Run, an app with like a podcast story about a zombie apocalypse to listen to when running, totally recommend it.


End file.
